


I Dont Believe In Fairytales

by colocakes



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: "prequel" fic, Dysphoria, Theories, first day in the life of a demon, light hearted romp through Bad Times, mentions of prostitution and general Angel type stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 18:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colocakes/pseuds/colocakes
Summary: With a groan, he pushed himself up. Another cold night in another filthy back alley. Nothing strange there. Another day out of his mind, however, because this couldn’t possibly be real.It felt real.Or:Angel Dust wakes up dead. The day after is jarring.Bonus prequel to a certain snake's hatred of him.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66





	I Dont Believe In Fairytales

**Author's Note:**

> random aside, the drug angel is named after did not get the name of angel dust until a while later. so i thought it would be strange to have him name himself after that when it doesnt exist yet. but! i did think that he may have had a friend or someone else who nicknamed him angel. thus, why theres only "angel" and no "dust". 
> 
> anyway heres free bird

This was lit thrown together based on wiki, comic, stream and the pilot info along with theories. So its obvs not gonna end up being true or anything like that but it scratched an itch I had soooo. Tada. 

Inspiration: “wonderland” by natalia kills, “desperate measure” by mariana's trench

hopefully its not the absolute worst!

00000000000

His first thought, is that he really needed to stop getting into these sorts of problems. The world came to him slowly, consciousness swimming somewhere above in the murky bruised sky. It took a long moment to remember where he was.

With a groan, he pushed himself up. Another cold night in another filthy back alley. Nothing strange there. Another day out of his mind, however, because this couldn’t possibly be real. 

It felt real. 

Angel ignored that invasive thought and stood. He pat his stomach lightly, a cursory check to be sure that he really wasn’t still bleeding out, and felt a shudder run through him. Still fur. Still not the pale human skin stretched too thin over his bones. 

Now, truthfully, Angel hadn’t spent much time in hospitals. He'd only really been once over a broken arm, before becoming otherwise located. But while the drugs he'd been on back then had been hard to shake for the next day or so, this had to be something else. Because he'd never lost contact with reality like this before. 

It would fade, he told himself, brushing the dirt from his matted fur. It had to. At his side, two extra arms hung. Now and then, they twitched or jerked, but the thought of them made his stomach turn. Like he was some kind of bug. 

He needed to eat. 

Venturing out onto the red dyed streets was something of a nightmare. Angel had gotten used to the alleys, at least, but the main strip was still difficult to wrap his head around. It looked straight out of the grisly painting of hell his grandmother had hung in her living room. Complete with skulls on fence pickets and jellied entrails looped around street lights. 

On wobbling legs, he stumbled along the sidewalk. Now and then, he came close to some hulking monstrosity and carefully slipped closer to the wall. Every time, it drove a stake of disgust through him. This wasn’t how he was supposed to act. 

Then again, this wasn’t Angel's city. All at once, longing filled him like lead. By his own blurry calculations, it had only been a couple of days since he'd woken up here. But it felt like a lifetime. He'd hated the city. Hated everything about the crowded streets, the rotten smell and the leering assholes that seemed to be waiting wherever he went. Now, he'd give anything to go back. 

Maybe if I close my eyes and click my heels, he thought acerbically. 

Towering spires crowded him, blocking out what was left of the bruised sky. Boldly lit billboards touted various products and services, hung at odd intervals. While some of the letters were in a language he couldn’t recognize, most of them made enough sense. 

Eying the curve of a humanoid woman's bosom as she was laid out on a billboard, Angel wondered what kind of place he'd landed in. At least the rotten smell in the air was familiar, in its own way. 

He ducked into the first place he didn’t get the jitters around and was pleasantly surprised to find himself in a dive bar. In the low lighting of the room, it was easy to pretend he wasn’t walking into a nest of monsters. Jazz was playing over some crackling radios, barely audible over the raucous crowd.

This was more his speed. A cursory glance at his own hands reminded him of what he'd laid in the night before. Glancing around, he spotted the crooked sign leading to the restrooms and slipped inside. If the streets outside were a disaster, this place seemed close to hell, he decided. 

Ignoring the doorless stalls and the rancid smell in the air, he stepped to the sinks and gave himself a good once over. If he'd felt dissociated from his body before, now he felt completely disconnected. 

Angel didn’t know what he'd expected to see. Something that looked human, at least, would have been nice. He searched the cracked mirror for any sign of what had been there before. It wasn’t the first time he'd seen himself since waking up in this nightmarish place, but it certainly hadn’t gotten better. 

Some parts of his face seemed familiar, at least. The freckles along his cheeks, the curve of his eyes. Even if they were slightly off. At least some parts of him remained. His stomach was somewhere near the floor, when he tore his attention back to the task at hand.

Angel made quick work of scrubbing himself down. Practiced hands made the task simple, working the grime from his grubby fur. His lower set of arms jerked and knocked into the side of the sink and he yelped, rubbing them gingerly.

“This is gonna take some getting used to.” he muttered, watching the fingers twitch minutely. 

When he thought he could stomach others seeing him, Angel made his way back into the main room of the bar. The radio was playing something new, some cheerful rendition of a ballad he'd heard once or twice. 

Despite the way his stomach was turning, he needed to eat. He needed to figure out some way to get the food. If he weren’t in a room full of monsters, maybe that task wouldn’t have seemed so Herculean. God knew it never had been back home. 

Taking a deep breath, he cast a glance around the bar. There were a few creatures that looked tolerable enough to flirt with. Judging by their wardrobe, they could probably afford to spend a bit on company. 

Putting on what he hoped was his most charming smile, he slipped into the crowd and sidled up to what looked just a bit like a clown. “Now whats a guy gotta do to get a drink around here?”

The clown eyed him over the rim of its drink, leaning away pointedly. Dropping the smile, Angel resisted the urge to snort at the thing. It probably wasn’t wise to approach anything here. The circumstances may be dire, but he still needed to be careful. 

A glass was slid in front of him, the contents colorful and strong smelling. Surprised, Angel glanced up at the bartender. The creature had numerous, coiling tentacles that worked around him. 

“Guy down there thought you'd like it.” the creature grumbled.

Eying the cocktail, Angel leaned to see who could have done so. The stranger in question hunched further over their own drink, a hat concealing most of their face. He looked awkward. Angel winked and the guy fumbled with his glass. 

Not one to turn down a drink, he tossed it back. It burned all the way down his throat and grounded him. For the first time in days, it felt a little bit closer to reality. He stood and made his way to the stranger, sitting beside him with a grin. 

“Thanks for the drink. Come here often?”

The stranger shrugged, dark skin warming around the cheeks. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that the man was about as humanoid as Angel was. Big magenta eyes watched the surface of the bar intently. 

“Sooo...” Angel leaned back on the bar stool, glancing around. “Kinda new around these parts. Maybe you could fill me in?” 

“New?” the man's voice rose a bit. “Well, I'd be happy to oblige.” 

He seemed awfully proud of himself, for someone who was barely able to look at him. Gesturing grandly towards the bar, the man began a deluge of flowery language. “Well, my striped friend, you are currently located in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods Hell has to offer, in the western half of the Pentagram!”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole!” 

“Pardon?! Who said that!” the man spun around, attempting to locate the offender.

Angel fought the urge to burst out laughing. None of what the lunatic had said made a lick of sense, but it felt good to know that even in this shit hole, nut jobs like this existed. “So, you're sayin' we're in hell right now?” he wiggled his fingers. “Fire and brimstone hell?”

The man turned back towards him, coughing into his hand. “Yes. That is exactly what I said.”

His first instinct was to call bullshit. But even if he discounted everything this weirdo said, it seemed to make sense. The gore, the walking horrors around him. They must be demons then. Was that what he was? 

But, you couldn’t just walk into the afterlife. A growing sense of dread began to blanket him. Running a hand through his messy fringe, Angel scrunched up his face. “But... if that’s the case, then what, we're all dead?” 

Eying him, the stranger's gaze took on a more empathetic light. “I'm afraid that is the case, yes.”

Angel didn’t refrain from laughing this time. The stranger jolted, watching him in surprise, as he tilted his head back and really let go. “W-What is so funny?” the man asked.

Truthfully, Angel couldn’t have answered that. He'd never imagined that this would be how things worked out. Dead. He was fucking dead. 

This didn’t make any sense after all. Wracking his brain for memories, clues, anything to understand what was going on, the laughter died on his lips. He'd been in a fight. There'd been a flash of cold steel, then pain, and then he was being dragged to the closest doctor available. Everything was a blur after that. 

Great. Just fucking great. 

“Are you alright...?” the man asked, wary. 

He didn’t need pity from some serpentine asshole. “No, pal, I'm not fucking okay.” he said, voice flat. 

The man made a gesture to calm him down, and without meaning to, one of Angel's new arms decided now was the perfect time to go rogue. It jerked and sent the man's glass flying, crashing into a lizard-like creature sitting beside the man. Neither had more than a second to think before the stranger cried out in rage, turning on them. 

“What the fuck, asshole?!” the creature roared, leaning over the snake-like man. “You wanna fuckin' go?!”

The man's hair flared up around him and a rattle sounded off. “Excuse me?! Do you know who you're talking to?! It is I, Sir Pen-”

He was cut off with an uppercut, sending him flying. Angel narrowly avoided the man's long body as he did, deciding that now would be a perfect time to get the fuck out of there. As chaos began to take over the bar, he bolted out the door. 

Inside, he could still hear shouts and cries as the entire place mauled one another. Taking a deep breath, he let it out in a ragged sigh. He leaned against the filthy brickwork of the building, letting the chill ease his nerves.

Well, he couldn’t say he hadn’t expected to end up in hell. At least, out of all of the news he could have received today, that wasn’t all that jarring. Looking up at the aubergine sky, he chuckled dryly. 

But at least he had some answers. At least there was a silver lining in that. He'd just have to make things work out, the way he'd always had to. Glancing around the crowded street, he caught a man staring from a stoop. He winked and Angel felt his stomach settle. 

At least some things never changed. 

0000000000

the fact that stream!angel cant flirt gives me life and cures my sins.


End file.
